Black
by WookieFragger
Summary: The dark contest has begun. A swath of destruction is cut across the desert. Left in the wake of these escaped patients are only fire and twisted metal.
1. Chapter 1

**Just a few comments here before the psychotic narrative begins. Firstly, characters and locations in this fiction that are found in Twisted Metal: Black are owned by the creators of that game, and not by myself, and their use in this fiction is unauthorized. That being said, this fiction is intended to gain me no material profit, and exists both to entertain the reader and to glorify the source material. For those of you who have never played Twisted Metal: Black, fear not, you will not be lost. I am not writing this on the assumption that everybody knows the characters beforehand. I still recommend that you buy the game, though. Not because it is necessary in order to understand the story here, because I just said it isn't, but simply because it is one hell of a good game. And to those of you who have played Twisted Metal: Black...I could soooooo kick your ass in multiplayer.**

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If he had known what had happened, he never would have done the things he had done. Nobody on earth was clearer evidence against the old proverb 'ignorance is bliss' than the uncreatively nicknamed John Doe. In his case, it was utter hell. The food was, too. He had been locked up in solitary for the past week. Punched an orderly. She had forgotten his drink at breakfast again, and for the first time in a while, he had calmly asked for her to go bring it. In reply, she remarked that of all people, _he _should get after _her_ for forgetting something. Bitch. She had asked for it, but the old warden didn't listen when he told him that. After all, she wasn't the one in the cell. You can't begin to crack the guard/nutjob dynamic in Blackfield asylum. From the moment you're admitted, you are limited to maybe one or two friends: the counselor, and on days when he worked in your wing, that one young security guard wasn't so bad either. For the most part, the other patients weren't worth knowing. At the moment, though, our man was denied even their company. All alone, he took some time to reflect.

He pored over his reflection in the metal food tray. Several small scars disturbed an otherwise smooth, handsome face. His thin black moustache seemed to punctuate his expression, emphasizing at the corner of his mouth some kind of defeated resignation, a period at the end of a question he had grown tired of asking. Maybe it was that way because he was always frowning, who knows? Who gives a shit? He certainly believed he didn't. He studied the tattoos on his chest and arms. Skulls, pentagrams, spiders, swastikas, the works. At this point, he wasn't so sure that he had been the kind of guy you'd say hi to on the street. He was almost convinced that if he ever did remember, he'd want to forget it again. The only thing he remembered about himself was his birthday. He would be 33 in about two months.

That thought alone took him back to his earliest memories, about two years ago, waking up in a hospital bed, writhing and panicking like a six foot tall newborn. It was horrifying; there was nobody, nothing he knew. But one thing he did know was that it couldn't be natural to have all those hoses and wires in you. The plastic tube running down his throat made him gag as he tried to scream. Men and women, some in white and some in blue came in and started excitedly to chatter and babble at him, and all he could do was yell like an ape. He was too weak to stand. After about a week, some things had come back to him. He remembered how to talk, read, write, do math, and he remembered his birthday. He was 30 years old. He remembered all of the little things, too. He remembered things from movies, he remembered the Pledge of Allegiance, and he remembered the first two verses of Amazing Grace. But there were some things that he couldn't remember. The one that made him the most upset was that he couldn't remember his own name. So the doctors and nurses just called him John Doe, and he would scream at them that it wasn't his name. Once his strength had returned, he was kept at the police station, where they tried to match his fingerprints. That was when they discovered that he didn't have any. There was nothing on his fingertips but smooth, white scar tissue. When the police chief took him into his office and told him they couldn't identify him, he completely freaked. He attacked the chief, seized his gun, and demanded that the chief tell him his name. When he told him that he didn't know, John broke both of his arms, and then leaped out the window and into the parking lot where he was tazered unconscious by the SWAT team that had surrounded the building.

From that point on, he had been kept in Blackfield asylum, with nothing to look forward to but the next questioning, the next test, the next meal, and the next sedation. After a while they'd take him off the sedatives, and inevitably someone would piss him off and he'd do something stupid, like punch an orderly, and they'd stick him in solitary for a little bit and put him back on sedatives. When he wasn't in solitary he'd get to eat lunch in the cafeteria, play ball in the gym, and occasionally, go outside and get some fresh air. But everything was kept under a tight schedule, and under a close observation. Most of the other nutjobs were just morons, peeing their pants or asking why mommy won't wake up or begging you to tell them that you see the butterflies too. Some of them were really sketchy characters, though. There was a woman who was always bitching to him about how she was prettier than everybody, and yet she had never been married or even had sex, and once she added that last bit she would look him over really quick and grin. She gave him the absolute creeps. Every now and then there was the ugly redneck, Billy Ray, who was cursed not only with his shriveled face, but with the hickest name of all time. He was normally in solitary. He made a cranky fighter like John look like a pacifist. John couldn't really blame him. There was also a preacher who was okay for the most part, but every now and then he would start to talk about demons and hell. After a few minutes of this the guards would come up and take him away.

And then there were two more, and they frightened the hell out of him. One of them he had seen on his first trip to solitary confinement. John was being escorted by the young guard that time, the echoes of his boots slowly worked their way down the dank, dimly lit, rusty corridor and back. The doors on either side had small little sliding slots at eye level, and some of them were open. Looking out the corners of his eyes he might see people in the occupied cells. There was the preacher, kneeling in front of his window, the picture of piety with faint, misty light shining in upon his bowed head and shoulders. So that's where they took him to, John thought as he walked past. There was the redneck in another, and there was some goth kid in another cutting into her arm with her fingernails, and then there was a skeleton. He passed it, and then, shocked, he wheeled around to look again, nearly knocking over the young guard. "Hey, easy, dude!" the young man said mildly. John pressed his face up against the slot. There it was, a skeleton all right. It was fully clothed; the only visible bones were the ones that made up the large white skull. The guard tapped John on the shoulder. "Hey!" he whispered. John ignored him. The young man persisted. "Don't look at him, dude!" John kept looking. "Why?" he asked. The skull then turned and looked straight at him. There were eyes in its sockets. John gasped and shuddered. The whole skull was split in two, with leather stitches holding it together along the split. The jawbone was cut in half right down the middle, the halves sticking out sideways. It was hellish. The skull started to say something in a dry, low voice when the guard snapped the slot shut. John was sweating and out of breath. After a moment, he snapped out of it. "What the hell was that?" he panted. The guard began to lead him down the corridor again. Mutedly, he began to explain, "He's not dead. That was Grimm. He's never taken that cadaver off for anything. It's not safe to even try removing it. Rumor has it he killed some four of his rescuers in 'Nam when they tried to take it off. He's never been outside of solitary." "'Nam?" John asked. The guard cocked an eyebrow for a moment, and then, realizing, continued, "Oh, right, the amnesia…overseas conflict in the 70's. Shit, I wasn't even born yet. He's been here for about thirty years. Longer than anyone else, even the warden." "Old bastard" John interjected. The guard grinned at that. "Tell me about it. That ole bear's docking my pay." They reached the vacant cell. Reluctantly, John stepped in. He turned around to face the young man. He shook his head. "I guess I could have it worse." The guard nodded, then closed and locked the door. A second later his boots began to echo down the hall. The thought of being locked away all those years with a skull on your head deeply troubled him. The same thing might happen to him, the skull on his chest instead of his head.

On the other end of the spectrum there was a relatively new arrival, only three months ago, and he had seen him only once. They had brought him in a big truck out to the gate in the middle of the night and in the pouring rain. John was two days back from solitary, tired and sluggish from the sedatives, but still unable to sleep. He watched from the cross-shaped window. Big shirtless fellow, and judging by all the heavy-duty gear they were using to hold him, this guy was dangerously fucked up in the head. The guy was cuffed, of course, and he was escorted by five cops. One of the cops was holding a pole with a cage on it that went around the guy's head. Another cop was holding one end of a chain that attached to a steel belt that went around the man's waist. On top of all that, the asylum security that came out to meet the party came with shock sticks. The guards took the pole and began to lead him through the gate, when something happened that John would never forget. It looked like the top of the man's head flashed, and sparks fell through the cage. Then, the top of his bald head unmistakably burst into flames. Glowing red in the firelight, John could see the face of a clown. The image was now complete, the killer clown with a burning head. The clown began to scream, and he collapsed onto the ground. Wriggling and writhing with his bound head, hands, and waist, he looked like some kind of psychotic maggot, or worm. The guard with the pole yanked at it real hard, and the clown was violently jerked by his head about a foot across the ground. He was still screaming. The rain was now turning into steam above his head. The other guard began to jab at him with the shock stick. The scream turned into a shrill shriek, and he kicked fiercely at the air. The guard jabbed again, the stick making a loud zap and flashing blue as it hit the skin. The spectacle had become too much for John. He flattened his back against the wall by the window and slowly shrank down to the floor. The zapping and shrieking continued, but soon the shrieks had begun to sound like laughter.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2

People called him 'kid'. He didn't much care; it was only a nickname, like the cook, Butch. Besides, the young man was surrounded by patients with weird nicknames, like No Face, or Bloody Mary, so as far as nicknames go, he was relatively fortunate. Still, though, he wished people would just call him 'Jimmy'. Besides, even though he was the youngest person who worked there, he was already past 25. Hardly a child. He had started working there shortly after college, and he was as responsible and mature as they come. The only thing that earned him the name was his shy nature. This guy was more than a little timid; he was an outright pussy. Hell of a place for a guy like him to work. Some of the more alert patients liked to try to frighten him. Others didn't try. They were scary without intending to be, like that preacher. He was nice and all, and he didn't mean anybody any harm, but just knowing what that old man had done, and the reasons he claimed for doing it, was enough to give you the heebie-jeebies, especially when he started talking all that whacked out theological weirdness about demons and sin. Jimmy didn't quite know how to deal with him. He didn't like to act afraid around the preacher, because although he was nuts, he still commanded some of that sort of pious respect entitled to someone of his office. So, for the most part, he would avoid him, and limit any interactions he might have with him to small talk. In an asylum, small talk is really, really tiny. It was actually more awkward than simply not talking. The last thing he needed was more of his grandiose delusional bullshit, which you were always at risk of getting when you tried talking to him. Today, he decided to risk it anyway.

The old man had apparently been damning people in the cafeteria again, and Jimmy had to take him to solitary again. The old man was walking totally erect, his cuffed hands folded in prayer, and it made Jimmy feel small. He was staring at the floor, debating whether or not to try to make conversation with him. He wanted to be friendly, but he also realized he was taking him to solitary confinement, so the old man might not be too receptive to anything Jimmy might have to say. Jimmy's braver side won.

"It's getting warm out. Spring, soon." He said. The old man looked at him over his shoulder. The wide brim of his hat cast a long shadow over his face. His glasses glinted in the yellow light of the hallway. Creepy. Yet another moment that Jimmy wished they'd not let the patients keep their wardrobe. Course that would make them more hostile, but still..."Yes, I suppose so." He replied in his thick, craggy southern drawl. The young guard felt a little dumb. The weather? You're taking the guy to solitary, idiot, he's not going to get to go outside for a while. There was about a minute of silence. Yeah, he thought, that was some pretty small talk there, Jim. He took another stab at it. "Big shipment of frozen beef came in. I tole Butch to make steak tonight. I'm getting kinda tired of the slop he serves. One thing we both have in common: same lousy food." The preacher grinned. "I never knew you boys ate the same food we do. I always guessed you ordered out, or something." Jim was pleasantly surprised. As unassuming as he was, the preacher never seemed to care much for idle conversation before. "Well, I guess it just keeps us pure, reverend." The old man chuckled. "Butch is a good fellow, though. Could you ask him something for me?" "Sure, no problem." Said Jim. The reverend went ahead,"Ask him to make me a salad if he would. Friday in Lent, you see." Jim got out a little notepad and wrote it down. "To do list?" the preacher asked. Jim smirked. "Favors. Makes me feel like I'm a nice guy." The preacher smiled at him. "That you are, child, that you are." The preacher sighed sadly. "Midtown could use more men like you. The whole world for that matter." His eyes wandered off. Jimmy then felt a wave of pity for the old man.

"Son, I'd imagine you know of the tragedy associated with me." Jimmy nodded. "You also know why I claim innocence in the whole affair." Jimmy began to feel butterflies in his stomach. The old man claimed he was possessed by a demon, and that the demon forced him to kill those people. Jim didn't know if he believed in demons or hell, but he believed that the old man certainly _thought_ he was possessed. He felt the old man was innocent. But he didn't want the old man to start going off into the fucking creation account, or whatever nonsense he was about to drawl on about now. "Whatever you believe about me is your own business, child, but there are demons out there, and they hate God's creation." Here we go, thought Jim. He politely listened on. He quickened his stride a little. The old man didn't seem to notice. He just went on. "There is a change coming, son, an awful change that will change us all forever, and it just may claim my life." Nice, old man, but I really don't care. "How sure are you?" Jim said, mentally kicking himself for being too polite. "Sure as hell." Interesting. That was the closest thing to a profanity he had ever heard the old man say. "Son, you are precious in the eyes of God, but there is a man here who cares nothing for your life. God has revealed his presence to me. I know the killer is here, that damned SweetTooth!" The old man put his cuffed hands on his arm and gripped tightly. The young guard stepped back and pulled his arm away. "Relax, dude! No need for language!" The old man held his hands forward, as though he was begging. "I'm not profaning! The man is damned, and he will soon be set free! Everyone here will be set free, and it will be hell on earth! Satan's pawn is coming, and he is going to empower the tortured souls here to lash out in anger and hatred at the world!" The old man was sweating hard, and shaking like a leaf. Jim grabbed him. "Dude, calm the fuck down, alright!" Shit, I cursed, he thought. The old man calmed down, though. They continued the walk until they arrived at the door of the windowless cell. I've had the strangest talks in these halls, thought Jim. He quietly opened the door to the cell, uncuffed the preacher and gestured him in. The preacher took a step over the threshold, and then, turned his head to the young guard. "I'm sorry if I made that unpleasant. I realize I must be a little hard to deal with when I have my deep concerns in mind." Jimmy shrugged. "Don't mention it, I know you don't mean bad by it." The preacher nodded and looked down at the ground. Jim felt the pity again, despite his aggravation. Jimmy fished around for something to say. "I'll tell Butch to get your salad. Dinner's about six, so if they don't bring it around then, I'll get on 'em about it." "Thanks, son, I'd appreciate it." Jim waved his hand. "Don't mention it." "Son, I don't believe I caught your name." "Folks call me Jimmy." Bold-faced lie, but a white one. "Jimmy, you don't have to believe me now, but when it happens, be ready for it." Jimmy wanted to roll his eyes. "I'll be sure." The preacher looked relieved. "God bless you, son, take care."


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. 3

He had never met Butch face to face, but the clown had already placed him near the top of his list. When your head is burning, you're in excruciating pain. He wasn't going to put up with anyone joking about it. No dignity in that. Kills the fear. He had been told that there would be steak. The clown didn't get steak. He had been given a great big slab of frozen beef, and a little snowy pile of frozen peas, finished off with a glass of ice. The guard told him Butch said he was perfectly equipped to cook the steak. His intense scowl was hidden behind his monstrous clown mask. At the moment he had no way of eating the damned steak. A man's head can't always be on fire, you know, and even if it was, he sure as hell wasn't going to make a barbecue on top of his fucking head. He said nothing to the guard. As he glared at him, he was forming a mental image of the young man being made to fit through the slot in the door. It would take a bit of work, but he figured that in the unlikely event he was ever let out of solitary, he might be able to make the necessary adjustments to the sissy man's body with the hard edges of the handcuffs. His arms were skinny enough, maybe he'd only have to cut them at the shoulders. The thought was fascinating. He kept reflecting on that thought as the guard walked away, and after a minute or two he put his food tray down on the ground and began to hold the beef slab up to the top right corner of the door. The hinges were on the other side. He stood there with his hand held up to the slab for a while, and he started to give the palm of his hand a mild case of frostbite. Suddenly the clown swore aloud. It occurred to him that he was doing this in the wrong order. He put the meat down on the tray and slid it over to the other end of the room. He would have to wait. He would need to flare up real soon, or the food would get too cold for it. It had been only a few hours since the doctors had...

His scalp flared right up as if on cue. Little burning flecks of skin floated down in front of his eyes. Thankfully, he couldn't feel a thing. The meds were supposed to help 'alleviate the intense chemical imbalances in the patient's brain'. Well, boys and girls, he thought, turns out there's nothing wrong with my brain, I just like killing people, but thanks anyway for the drugs, they're great painkillers! The thought was silly. The irony of it poked him in the belly, and he started to laugh. He pressed his the crown of his head against the corner of the door. He held it there for little while, and started to feel a little drowsy. The clown drifted off into a pleasant sleep, and was filled with somnolent nostalgia as he cruised down memory lane. A happy family in a clean, white house sitting down to eat a chicken dinner in a modern kitchen, the epitome of the American dream. He was watching through a hole in the basement door. He had to try very hard to keep from giggling. It was almost too exciting for him to handle. A husband, a wife, two teenage boys, and a bouncing little baby girl. They all held hands and said grace, and started to eat. The father had started to talk about his work at the office that day, and his wife was listening intently as their children enjoyed the meal. The father just kept yammering for God only knows how long, and then, had a small coughing fit. His wife asked him if he was okay, and he gave her a quick thumbs-up and a nod while he was trying to catch his breath. He kept it under control for a minute, but then it came back. His face was turning red. His wife told him to drink something. He poured himself a tall glass of ice water and took a big swig, but ended up blasting it out his mouth and nose making a mess all over his shirt. The baby started to cough, too. One of the boys picked her up and tried to burp her. She did burp, but quickly started coughing again. The boy had to clear his throat. He had to do it again. His brother had run to the bathroom. His mother had begun to cough, and rustled nervously through the medicine basket on the counter. His father walked up next to her and vomited in the sink.

The boy began to panic. He wanted to yell, but could only manage to gag. The baby was trying to cry, with the same result. He put his sister down in her high chair and ran for the telephone. He picked it up and frantically dialed 911. Nothing happened. It took him a moment before he realized the cord was cut. He choked on the f-word. They all looked like trapped mice to the hidden clown. He had never taken this approach, and it was exhilarating. The pain and fear, and nobody had any idea of foul play but that one bastard kid. It would do the kid no good, though. There was enough poison in them now to kill them all six more times. The baby was the first one to die. The mother went to her, crying and screaming and begging God not to let this happen. Her husband died about a minute later. He was slumped over on the floor next to the high chair in the arms of his wife; his face was dark purple. His sons had gone out the back door to get help. The puke-stained one felt like he was about to hurl again and ran back inside to find that his mother had died too. He then vomited up more blood than he would have guessed was in his body, and fell to his knees. The last one, the boy who tried to make the call, staggered in to try to pull his brother away, they had to get out, but he spent the last of his strength and died on his brother's back. He slid off his brother's back and both corpses fell face forward to the ground. Nobody survived. The clown was laughing raucously at the grim spectacle. The poison had eaten away the lining of their veins, and they had choked to death on their own blood. It was one of his proudest achievements. But it wasn't over. He stood up and opened the door. He pressed his fingers against each of their necks. Their blood was still moving, but their hearts had stopped beating. He knew it would come soon. He had read that it would come soon, and he had determined to wait until it came. It looked like a Nativity scene, the little girl in the high chair as Jesus, Mary and Joseph next to the child, kneeling together, and two shepherds prostrated in worship. And finally it came. It was hard to tell at first, but the redness became more pronounced. Red patches had formed all over their dead bodies. Their pores had opened, and were now tiny pinpricks of red on their faces. Their skin had become like a colander, and their blood slowly drained out. They bled thickly from the eyes, and the whole family wept tears of blood for their fates. The clown couldn't laugh. Rather, he cried. Not for remorse or grief. He wasn't capable of that. He cried because of beauty. His mind went numb with it. He was entranced, enchanted, and his heart was filled with the beauty of the evil. It was the bloody Nativity; the birth of death; an artistic expression of beautiful evil and an evil expression of beautiful art. It was his masterpiece.

Where some hear beauty in the sound of a bow and a violin, the clown could find beauty in the sounds of final screams and the passionate scarlet red of blood. Death, pain, and hatred were truly forms of art. Every time he killed someone, it was a powerful lifting of the spirit, an exhilarating high, and his hateful scowl was his expression of blissful happiness. He was blissfully, joyfully evil. The clown had a sweet tooth for destruction, and he would gorge himself on it. He had totally and fully devoted himself to death. He had become the sweet tooth, and he loved it. He had ceased to be a man. The name of this creature was no longer 'Man'. The creature proclaimed before God and his host that he was Sweet Tooth. The creature had fulfilled his purpose three months ago hiding in that basement. All the corpses and the grief and sadness he had brought upon other people were mere child's play next to his bloody Nativity.

The clown's trip down memory lane soured. It was the beauty that silenced the artist. One of the kids had called 911 before they came back inside. Police cars filled the block. He never had a chance. He had been tried, convicted, and sentenced. He had been sentenced to…

The dreams faded away into the dull pain that filled his head, and he awoke. The meds had worn off. As it dawned on him what had just happened, he was thankful that he hadn't fallen over. The corner of the door was a dim red. He went over and grabbed the beef slab. Still frozen. He breathed a sigh of relief. He pressed it into the glowing hot metal, and steam rushed up to the ceiling. He pressed long and hard until the beef eventually thawed. The hinges would be as weak as twigs. He walked over to the opposite end of the cell, and sat there for a while, saving his energy. Sweet Tooth had been deprived of beauty for three months. It would be waiting on the other side of that door. A whole world of beauty was out there, and he dashed as fast and as hard as he could. The hinge snapped like a twig. It was time to make some magic.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch. 4

Parked more than a mile away from Blackfield Asylum on a small hillside rising above the plateau was a ratty old clunker, so rusty that it was nearly impossible to tell what the hell kind of car it was. The driver was sitting on the hood, looking blankly down at the distant asylum, a faint smudge with of gray with four searchlights that were mere dots in the middle of the broad, flat, black desert night. He had been watching the place for three months, and he had made up his mind. It was perfect. This year, it would be like no other. It wouldn't be hard to recruit people who's desires have little root in reality, and each one of them was something special. And, of course, there was Sweet Tooth. He was already his favorite, even though he'd never met the clown face to face. He already knew, and it wouldn't be long until the festivities began, and he could meet the object of his fascination face to face. It was thanks to the clown that he found the Asylum, and for that he almost wanted to shake his hand, but he had a healthy dose of self-interest that told him that if he wanted to keep his life, he probably shouldn't do that. He had been watching the clown for a long time with eager eyes. Murder after murder, all in cold blood, and Sweet Tooth showed no remorse for what he was doing. There were others, too, that struck the man's fancy, like Grimm and the amnesiac, but he really wanted Sweet Tooth to win. The man pulled an m9 pistol out from his belt. One of his favorites from last year had given it to him. Police special, and very reliable. Sure, he already had one, but he appreciated the gesture. He toyed with it, twirling it on his finger and then stopped it, looking down the sights at Blackfield. He wondered how the clown would take to guns. Something flickering in the distance caught his attention.

The man grinned. He replaced the gun and fumbled in his pocket for his monocular telescope, and put it up to his good eye. He focused in on it and grinned. The clown had lit up again, and the light of the flames glowed red through the single cross-shaped window in the cell. Like the antichrist, the man mused. He moved around to see if he could catch a glimpse of the clown, but had no luck. Screw it, he thought, it's not important. He didn't need to see him with the good eye, anyway. That was for normal people. He had a special way of seeing. He put his hand over his good eye and began to progressively relax. His blackened eye was not blind by any means. It wouldn't be correct to call it a bad eye. An evil eye would be more accurate. He began to focus his thoughts on the object of his attention. He thought of the clown, and slowly, a picture began to form in his mind. "There you are" the man muttered. The clown was standing upright, his arm stretched out. He was angry, and his hand was pressed hard against…a frozen steak?

The man smirked and lost his concentration. A while went by before he was able to regain it. Now the clown was sitting against the wall, thinking. The man strained hard to focus on the clown. What was he thinking? He was too far away; he couldn't see it from there. The clown leapt up and ran. "Ah!" The man jumped with the start and lost the image. The red flicker in the distance disappeared. The man stopped for a second, and then cursed aloud. The clown had escaped, and if he didn't make his move now he might lose him. The man popped the trunk of his rusty old clunker. He hurriedly rummaged through the several backpacks he had squished together, and discovered with a nasty shock that a raccoon had made a bed out of one of them. It leapt out of the bag and onto the ground, and began to scurry away. Like lightning, the gun was in his hands and lined up, and he put a hole in its head. He put it back in his belt and went back to trying to find that damned radio.

He found it. He tuned it and sent, and waited for that familiar voice. "Master" the radio responded. "It's time" the man said with a mean smile "Tell them to move out right now." The voice on the other end came back. "Yes, my master." The man switched off his radio and yanked open the door. It fell off. It didn't matter. He put the key in the ignition, and floored it.

The rust and mold trailed off the car in clouds of dust as he sped up, faster and faster, the whole time the car rattled and shook as though it was falling apart. Blackfield Asylum mushroomed in front of him. Two search towers were already focused on him as he sped up to the fence, and he hit the gate like a missile. The gate flew open and the car seemed to explode into a massive cloud of dust illuminated by the searchlights. An alarm sounded, and two security personnel came out, nervously aiming their weapons at the cloud. The dust lingered in the air, as though frozen. Finally, it cleared, and when it did, the car was gone. All that was there was the man, standing tall. The guards exchanged nervous looks. One of the guards, clearly the youngest, was sweating like mad. The man eyed him with his good eye. The young man's hands were shaking uncontrollably. If he fired, he had a pretty good chance of hitting only sand. The young guard finally shouted, "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?" In response, the man shot all three of his comrades. The young guard froze, and then his finger squeezed the trigger. The gun jumped to life. The kick was like stopping a baseball bat with the palm of his hand, and he could feel the shock all the way up his arms. The bright flashes were agonizing, and he squinted his eyes. Finally it stopped. The magazine was empty. The cordite stung his nose. The young guard lowered his gun. The man was still standing there. His hands were flung out in front of his face. He slowly lowered his hands and opened his eyes. Off in the distance, a line of lights could be seen on the horizon, and the rumbling of cars grew louder and louder.


	5. Chapter 5

Ch. 5

John Doe had been banging on his door for a while now. His hands were a little red. He started yelling again. "What the hell's going on? Hey?" Still no answer. Some bad shit was going down and he was beginning to panic. A while ago he had seen the clown run past his door, and only a few minutes later there had been some shooting outside. He couldn't see a damned thing, but he could hear a lot. A car crash, alarms, gunshots, and that kid guard screaming at the top of his lungs. And now it sounded like a motorcade out there. It was way too much, too fast. The clown did all of that, he thought. That hell clown from three months ago had gotten free and was going to kill everybody. Then the panic set it. His mind raced, and he began to breathe hard and his stomach tied up in a knot. He couldn't see a thing from the padded cell. It was all happening just out of sight, and all he could do was listen. And he was a sitting duck. One part of his mind was tugging at him, telling him to get a grip. He was going to be fine. He tried to calm down. He was shaking almost out of control. "You're going to be fine." He wheeled around. "Who said that?" he yelled. It took him a moment. He sighed heavily and looked down at the ground. You said that, he thought. He nodded his head in agreement. I said that. He sat slowly down at the ground. I am going to be fine. He began to whisper it to himself. "I'm going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. I'm going to be fine…" He kept it up, and after about a minute he began to ease up. His heart stopped racing.

He looked up at the small cross-shaped window. Faint stars twinkled in the night outside. "I'm going to be fine." It was more of a prayer now. He wanted to know he would be safe. He heard footsteps in the hall. I'm going to be fine. He carefully, noiselessly stood up, his back against the door, and he turned his head over his shoulder to peek through the slot. He still couldn't see who was there. A timid voice came from one of the doors opposite John's cell. "H-hello?" the man said. The footsteps stopped. The closed eye level slot rattled a little bit. The man whimpered, "Who's there?" The footsteps started again towards the door. Finally, John could see the clown. Black smoke smoldered from his head, and his arms were soaked with blood. And he had a gun. John closed his eyes and begged silently in his mind, oh God no, please God, not him. Frozen, he watched in utter terror. The man locked in the cell was a fish in a barrel. The clown raised his pistol with his right hand. The slot, he thought with horror, it doesn't open from the inside, he'll never see it coming. The clown reached out with his left hand and pinched the little tab. The man inside began to say something when the clown yanked the slot open. For a split second, John could see the man's face, pressed right up to the open slot. Then, a painful crack, and he was gone. A shriek escaped John's throat, and before he could stifle it, the clown glared right into his eyes. John ducked down and crawled to the corner of the room just right of the door. He heard the footsteps, slow and menacing, grow ever louder. They stopped. The clown wouldn't be able to see him, not from there. But he knew. The clown had seen him, and he was going to kill him. John prayed silently in his mind, you're going to be fine, you're going to be fine. He shook like a leaf. The black barrel poked through the slot. John gasped and started to hyperventilate. It was turning towards him. He bent his head down and covered his ears with his hands. His stomach was churning violently, and he choked back his own vomit. A metal clink.

John looked up. The gun hadn't turned any more. It swung back, and quickly jerked towards him again with a clink. The trigger guard was catching on the door; it couldn't quite turn all the way. The gun disappeared and the door shook with a loud boom. A glimmer of frantic hope jolted through his body. The door was locked, and the gun was too big. He was going to live, he thought with astonishment, as long as he stayed right where he was. He was going to live. A loud crack and an agonizing metal clang rang out and bored into his temples, and light shone through a small hole in the door. There was the clang again, and sparks flew into the cell through a new hole. Then, the door slowly creaked open.

The clown walked in with muffled footsteps and glared at him. The mouth of the clown's chipped mask was drawn back, its dirty, ceramic teeth grinning in a sick, unchanging smile. Small glowing cinders dotted the crown of his scabbed and burned head. The smell of the smoke filled John's nose. It was the smell of charred, smoldering human flesh. The clown's red eyes were like drills, boring into his own, watering brown eyes. The smell made him puke. He began to cry, and couldn't stop. The clown just stood there, watching him huddling in the corner, losing total control. The clown pointed the gun down at John's face, his drilling eye staring right between the sights of the gun, the barrel only inches from the poor man's forehead. John's feet dropped out from under him, and he sat shaking pathetically in a puddle of puke and urine. He closed his eyes, and shook his head from side to side, screaming at the top of his lungs. Then, there was a sound like a gas stove turning on. The gun went off, and cotton stuffing rained down on John's head. John forced his eyes open, and saw the clown's head engulfed in white-hot flames. The clown was waving his arms, taken completely by the pain. He was firing the gun out of control, shooting the walls, the floor, the ceiling, raining dust and stuffing, and then it was empty. John snapped out of it. He leapt up and punched the clown viciously in the face. Over and over, bashing against the ceramic facemask with his bare fists. The clown lost his balance and toppled over, writhing in agony on the floor. John didn't stop. No, he attacked more viciously than before, beating him mercilessly until he stopped moving. The flames snuffed out, and John stopped. The mask was badly cracked. Blood trickled out from the mask and drew thin red lines down the side of the clown's head. John stood there, breathing heavily, twitching with the adrenaline. His own hand was badly cut. He wondered, had he killed him? No, he was breathing. John let out a heavy sigh, and walked over to the small cross-shaped window and took in a breath of the night air. Hands began clapping behind him. He turned around. The man was wearing a black jacket; he was looking down at the clown with a grim smirk on his face. John clenched his fists. "The fuck are you?" he demanded. The man looked up at him. His right eye was solid black. "My name is Calypso" he said, "and I think you might be interested in what I have to say."


	6. Chapter 6

Ch. 6

Jimmy lay perfectly still, prostrate under a tarpaulin in the back of the pantry behind the kitchen, peeking out from a small fold in the plastic. The black-eyed man was letting people out, he thought nervously. He had seen a couple of them from his hiding place, wandering around in the cafeteria. What's worse, he discovered Sweet Tooth's handiwork in the kitchen, although he would never know that it was the clown who had done it. Butch was slumped over by the stove next to the pantry. His head had been cut off. Jim could see the body's feet through the pantry door. He was waiting for the coast to be clear, and then he was going to run the fuck out of there. The kitchen was a big galley with an open wall where Butch would have served the food. The shadows in the cafeteria had stopped moving. It looked like he was alone. He pressed his hands to the floor and began to push up, but the pain in his left arm was too great. He eased himself back down. A puddle of blood formed underneath the arm.

He had heard some bad shit about this Calypso guy. Apparently ran some kind of illegal contest out in the desert. He remembered the conversation he had less than a year ago, with one of the guards on lunch break. The guard was an ex-cop. Maximilian Stone, a local hero in Midtown. He told him how Calypso used to round up sketchy characters driving on the desert roads and get them to participate in his game. He'd give them guns and pit them all against each other in an anything-goes free for all. The lucky winner gets whatever their heart desires. Jimmy didn't quite believe that, but he was more than convinced that Calypso was a dangerous man. Calypso had killed three of his buddies, and had shot him in the arm. He wasn't quite doing so well with it, either. As he ran back inside, the black-eyed man had been unloading in his direction, and one of the bullets found its way to the meat above his elbow and out the other side. He never knew it in all the panic, but he had lost a lot of blood, and that is what brought the freaks to the cafeteria. They were following the dotted red line, as it were, into the cafeteria, and all they found was Butch. They didn't care enough to stick around. Except for one.

After a while, Jimmy heard something in the kitchen. The tarpaulin had slipped down over his eyes. He slowly pushed it up with the back of his hand. The dim light of the cafeteria made his eyes ache, which in turn woke up a dormant migraine that stretched all the way across his brain. He squinted his eyes and tried hard not to groan. It was damn hard to see. There was a blurry figure like a silhouette bent over by Butch's feet. It grabbed the feet and dragged the body right in front of the doorway. The then walked out of view for a moment. There were some noises in the kitchen, a few dishes breaking, and the clank of silverware, but eventually the figure came back into view. He was holding something in his hand, but it was too fuzzy for Jimmy to see. He was straining hard to focus, and to keep a grip. All he had to do was stay quiet and wait for him to leave. The figure bent down with his back facing the pantry. The figure was doing something to the body. It was impossible to see. Jim held his breath, and focused his eyes on the floor in front of him. He slowly moved his line of sight upward, giving his eyes the chance to adjust to the distance and to the light. The figure was kneeling on the ground, working his arm back and forth. Sawing, Jim realized dully. That shadow is sawing Butch into pieces. The figure stopped sawing. It put the thing in its hand down, and it glinted dimly. A knife. The silhouette then put its hand on Butch's arm and began to pull. It tugged and pulled over and over, and there was a sick, wet sound of snapping tendons and ripping exposed muscle. The silhouette made a loud, straining groan, and Butch's arm ripped apart at the elbow. The shadow staggered back on its knees, and its head, a bare, white skull, caught in the pale light.

Jim felt himself breathe, "Grimm". He could only see the skull for a second, then, Grimm ducked out of the light and began to bite and tear at the arm. The smell of blood grew thick and heavy as the freed patient ripped open the warm insides of Butch's arm with his teeth. He chomped and slurped, and made all kinds of sticky, squishy sounds as he ate. Jim retched. He hadn't meant to, and he didn't see it coming, but he couldn't help it. It one, loud, roaring groan, he painted the floor with steak and peas. Grimm stood up. Jim shuffled back and let the tarpaulin slide down over his face. The light flicked on, and a shock of pain shot all the way through his eyes to the back of his head. Grimm's boots clopped on the floor. Jim held as still as he could, which meant having to keep his head down, even if he had to hold his ear into a puddle of puke. His heart was pounding hard, and the pool of blood under his arm advanced to the edge of the tarp. He watched with hopeless, silent dismay as the red boundary crept up to the plastic border and under. The tarpaulin violently tore off from his back, and he pulled his legs in close to him and hunched his shoulders in the fetal position. The light was blinding, and he snapped his eyes shut.

Grimm's fingers grabbed his hair and yanked. Jim Jerked upward and fell back on his ass. Grimm still held him by the hair. Blood dripped from the split halves of the skull's jaw. He twisted his grip and turned Jimmy's ear toward him. "Smooth, kid" Grimm dryly laughed. Jimmy's teeth were chattering. Tears were streaming from his eyes. "P-please don't kill me" he begged. Grimm let go of Jimmy's hair and started shredding an amazing guitar solo. Jim blinked. The guitar disappeared. Grimm shook his head and grinned, his mouth sticky with gore. Jimmy began to ask, "Did you just-?" Grimm interrupted. "I only ever killed gooks, and that was in 'Nam." Jimmy wanted to ask about his rescuers, but decided that it maybe wasn't the smartest thing to do.

"You've lost a lot of blood, there." Grimm said, pointing to Jimmy's arm. A parrot perched on Grimm's shoulder. The bird squawked, "You're a big pussy, Jim." "What did you just say?" Jim asked. "I said you've lost a lot of blood." said Grimm. The parrot rolled out its forked tongue and blinked its snake eyes. Jim's sight began to fade. He weakly shook his head and gasped, "No…I was talking…to…the…bird" and then passed out.


	7. Chapter 7

Ch. 7

"I know who you are, and I'm not interested." said the old man. Calypso stood leaning against the metal door, staring at the preacher's back as the old man sat Indian-style on the floor noisily munching a salad. "Come again?" said the black-eyed man. The preacher swallowed a mouthful. "You heard me." he replied. Calypso frowned. The holy man was proving to be too troublesome already, and he had known him personally for about eight seconds. Calypso reached for his gun. He twirled it on his fingers, and then stopped it. "I have killed everything I ever shot at…" he said. The preacher grinned. "Have you now?" There was a momentary silence as Calypso eyed the old man intently. He closed his good eye. The preacher squirmed a little. He felt as though something was moving around inside him, probing around. A buzzard screeched outside the window, its silhouette flitting across the stars as it circled above the corpses of the three men outside. Calypso smirked. "Your little intervention was quite impressive there, reverend." "Intercession." the old man curtly responded. "Fine, don't take any credit" jeered the black-eyed man, "I just missed, that's all. I simply missed, even though he was right in front of me, and no more than ten feet away." The preacher stood up straight and sucked in air through his clenched teeth. His face was tightly drawn into an angry scowl that seemed to flatten his wrinkles. "You ungrateful prick!" the old man shouted, turning quickly around. "Don't you _dare_ discredit your creator! The God who made you and made your infernal master is the God who saved that boy. You owe everything to your Father, and you have chosen to walk alongside the prince of lies!" He was furious. The old man was shaking with rage.

Calypso jerked the gun up to the level of his eyes. The reverend's heart jumped, and he shrieked. He snapped his eyes shut and winced. The gun went off with a powerful boom. With a painful screech, the buzzard plummeted to the earth. Calypso's smirk grew into a wide grin, and he began to laugh. He lowered the gun. The preacher's face grew stern. Calypso doubled over. "Oh my God! The look on your face…priceless!" he laughed, pointing at the preacher. The reverend was not amused. "Do not use His name like that." he said. The black-eyed man stepped in close to the preacher's face. "What are you going to do about it, Bible humper?" he growled. "You know very well that I have a powerful relationship with my Lord, and he answers my prayers, Calypso." The black-eyed man stepped back. He knows my name, he thought with some dismay, the bastard's God told him my name. Calypso regained his composure. "Well, I see that not everything about you is bullshit, Jeb." he jabbed, hoping that it would disturb the old man that he referred to him by name. Instead, the old man smiled darkly. "And what did you think was?" asked the preacher. Calypso leaned forward a little bit. "St. Ambrose's." The preacher's smile faded. A moment or two passed, and he asked, "What do you know?" The black-eyed man laughed, "That you are as familiar with God's adversaries as you are with the big man himself." The preacher tossed it back and forth in his mind. That's what he's offering me, he thought. He's offering to drive out the demon.

It had been almost two years ago, on Easter when it had entered him. There was a young couple who had come to him to save their baby, who was tormented by a demon. He held the child over the baptismal font in St. Ambrose's Church, hoping the presence of Christ would frighten the demon away, and it did terrify the beast. The creature lashed out in fear. Blood and mucus flowed from the child's nose, and his skin dried up and cracked. The beast was enraged. Its master had promised that it would lead many of the flock of God astray, and yet now it was going to be forced to wander yet again, hounded by the warriors of God as it had been for untold millions of years. It had been promised, and it was going to take what had been promised to it. The child grinned, and the yellow eyes glared at the preacher, and the baby spoke with a voice that was like a thousand needles in his heart; "You are my chosen one, Jebediah! You are my child, here to do my bidding!" Then, the beast appeared at the child's mouth. It was small and slimy like a frog, and it was blacker than anything the preacher had ever seen before, like a black hole had been cut out in the shape of a frog. The preacher shoved the child under the water, but he wasn't fast enough. It leapt out of the child's mouth and grabbed on to the old man's face. The old man held his mouth closed, and so the creature melted. It became a vile smelling paste, and it slithered and slid into the preacher's nose, wriggling and writhing as it slipped down his throat. A horrible darkness fell like a curtain over his mind, and he lost all control over himself. He could feel his hands move, but not of his own will. He could see through his eyes, but could not control where they would look. The beast had taken him, and all he could do was cry out inside as he tore that church apart.

About a half hour or so after the murders, the police arrived, and the beast retreated into hiding, forcing him to take the blame. His testimony ended up getting him declared insane, and he wound up in the asylum. He had been waiting for years, and now, standing in front of him, was a man who knew where he was coming from. And he was the enemy. The preacher was staring off into the wall, thinking. Calypso fidgeted impatiently, when the preacher began to softly speak. "You want me in your death contest, and if I win, you will drive out the demon." Calypso nodded, smirking. "You wasted my sales pitch, padre." he mockingly sighed, "I had rehearsed." The old man turned and faced Calypso. "I'm not an idiot. Killing people to free myself from a demon is like putting fire out with gasoline." laughed the old man. "I'd rather be bothered by one demon on Earth than be bothered be the whole damned host when I die. You can count me out." The black-eyed man looked at him sideways. "Then how about if it were a moral victory." The preacher's eye twitched. Calypso stepped close to him. "If you win, Jeb, I'll do something even better than drive out the demon." Like lightning, Calypso's gun was out and pressed against the old man's forehead. Calypso had stopped grinning. "If you win, I'll destroy the demon."

The old man brushed away the gun with disgust. But a bizarre thought entered his mind. Kill the demon? Can he really do that? "Yes, I can", Calypso answered out loud. All of the people who've been murdered by the demon, all the people that will yet be. And all he had to do was kill the other contestants. A numbers game with human lives. Kill the few to save the many. It was the way to go. Something inside him was whispering, crying frantically like a baby. It moved around in his belly and its yell echoed through his bones to his ear. The preacher was totally pale, and he was sweating. He looked Calypso weakly in the eye. "I have prayed for years that God would remove the demon." said the old man. Calypso grinned again. "Beginning to have doubts?" he laughed. The preacher shook his head. "No. Perhaps this is his answer." Calypso shrugged and rolled his eye. "Whatever."


	8. Chapter 8

Ch. 8

Max Stone had watched Calypso storm the asylum. He had watched him hurt Jim and kill his friends. He had watched as the godforsaken place had been surrounded on all sides by a hellish motorcade. They began as lights on the distant horizon, moving closer and closer to him, growing larger and brighter with each passing moment, and he was afraid. He had heard the stories. You don't spent fourteen years on the force without knowing the names of every major dirt bag in Midtown. He lay prone in the tower, perfectly still, behind a rifle. The past was rushing through his head. He tried to blot it out, but it's hard to keep back the beating waves of memories when you know that you are about to die. The motorcade was like nothing he'd ever seen in his life. He guessed there were no less than five dozen vehicles in all. It was a bizarre hodgepodge of sedans, pickup trucks, and an eighteen-wheel flatbed truck. They had all been turned into crude deathmobiles, with mounted guns and stinger missiles just welded onto the chassis. Their engines roared like mad. He'd heard those kinds of engines before. Driven by every street-racer punk he'd ever cuffed, and every pimp he'd ever busted. But these cars were driven by little people.

They looked like dwarves, and they had ski masks and pulled over their faces. Holes had been cut in the sides of the masks, and long, pointed ears poked out. What's more, they were armed to the teeth. Uzis and mp5s, and grenades. They were practically miniature commandos, complete with stained and dirty camo jackets. The whole situation was severely rattling the ex-cop's nerves. He focused the rifle scope on the asylum's front entrance, a giant metal double-door, gaping wide open like the jowls of a monster. Carefully, he fingered his pocket and pulled out a small Tic-Tac box. Steadying the rifle with one arm, he popped a little white pill into his mouth. Diazepam. You weren't allowed to bring medication in without written instructions from the warden, so he always kept it in there. He calmed a little, but dared not relax. Patients had been wandering aimlessly out of the main door for a good while now, and there weren't too many left. Then, having finished his business in the asylum, Calypso would walk out. Right in the open. Right in between the crosshairs of his scope.

Suddenly Max Stone froze. It was the amnesiac. He walked through the door with his shirt over his shoulder as if he didn't have a care in the world. His body was covered in tattoos. The ex-cop began to shake. All the diazepam in the world couldn't have stopped the flood of tragic memories that came, unwelcome and unannounced.

It had been two years already since Stone had quit the force. After what he had done, he felt that he didn't deserve to ever wear his badge again. The victim's families had lost their case, but that didn't mean he would go unpunished. In his dreams, the little girl and her mother had executed him in a million different ways. His friends and family said it wasn't his fault, but he could never believe them. In one minute, he had let his anger kill good and evil alike.

A wacko doomsday cult had assaulted the Midtown Center for Disease Control. They were threatening to blow the whole building to hell, launching all sorts of diseases into midtown. Smallpox, Ebola, leprosy, even a live sample of the ancient Black Death were contained in that building. Containment would be impossible. The whole State was landlocked, and there was no time to set up an armed border patrol to keep frightened citizens from fleeing across the State boundary. Then, it wouldn't be long before people started fleeing across the national boundaries. There was nothing that could be done if the terrorists brought the place down. Humanity would end.

The negotiations weren't going well. The bastards had hostages. Through the scope of his rifle, more than a block away, he could see one of the terrorists through an open window, yelling into a cell phone, and waving a pistol in the air. The spotter sitting next to him said there were more of them in that room. They weren't interested in money or anything like that. They had made it known, plain and simple, that they were going to bomb the center at midnight, and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it.

Max Stone had seen true evil before. He had arrested countless thugs and lowlifes, and he had been involved in many a bloody raid. Sniping dirt bags was nothing new to him. But he had grown tired. Corruption and incompetence had ruined the police force's good name. He had seen thieves, killers, and rapists, all go free, and he was fed up with it. You scumbag, he thought, you will not walk out of jail. You won't even walk into it. There will be no pardons, no reprieves. There will be no whiny lawyers or heartbroken relatives to save you from the punishment for your crime. You, and you yourself are to blame for where you stand in the sights of my rifle.

Finally, the radio gave the signal. Shoot to kill. A shot rang out in the night. "You got him!" shouted the spotter. Agent Stone ejected the casing and forwarded the next round. Suddenly, the distant window started to flash like a strobe light. The spotter shrieked, "Shit, Max, hurry up!" Stone hurriedly leveled his rifle and pressed his eye to the scope. He had gotten one of them, to be sure, and one of his accomplices was going ballistic, shooting the hostages. "Max!" yelled the spotter. It didn't help, he couldn't get a clear shot. The man in the window was darting around like a bee. He stopped for a second. He raised his pistol and aimed at something in the corner. Stone's heart jumped. He breathed out. A flash. The crook's gun jumped, and blood spattered the wall. "FUCK YOU!" shouted Stone. A loud crack. The crook flew off his feet and landed limply on a coffee table. Max immediately ejected the casing and forwarded the next round. He steadied the rifle again, and peered into the window.

For a minute or two, there was absolutely no movement. Then, someone finally stepped into view at the very back of the room. A man, wearing a white lab coat, splattered and smeared with his colleagues' blood. There was something on his neck. He adjusted the focus. No luck. A shadow seemed to appear behind the person's back. "I can't see clear" Max said to the spotter. "Hostage." he replied. "I know that," Max spat back, "but what the hell is that behind him?" A puzzled furrow formed on the spotter's brow as he tried to make out the shadow. It didn't take long. The hostage was walking toward the window. "Goon behind him! Shit!" Max breathed out slowly. "Oooh Christ…" Max could see him now. Big and dark, like he ate babies for breakfast, marching the hostage in front of him. He had A gun pressing into the side of the poor man's neck. The man's eyes were closed. Tears streaming out of his eyes made dried blood on his cheeks run. The man behind him was ducking awkwardly behind the small human shield. He stopped. A thickly muscled arm flung out from behind the crying hostage. Slowly, two more lab workers stood up into view, a middle-aged woman and an old man, shaking and shuddering and spattered with blood. For a brief moment, Max could see the man's face, ugly and tough, his mouth spitting as he barked orders at the two other hostages. They formed a three-wide phalanx in front of him. He let go of the one hostage, and marched the three of them all the way up to the window.

The spotter had switched on his radio, and was giving a play-by-play of the whole thing. They were ordered to wait. They only had to wait a few seconds. The man's thick, bulging arm breached above the hostages' heads like the fluke of a whale. In his hand, he held a radio remote-control. Suddenly, Max had no time left, and no time to line up a perfect shot. He fired. The woman's arm flew off at the shoulder. "Damn it!" shouted Max. The spotter panicked. "Come on!" he shrieked. There was no time to aim. Only shoot. Eject, forward, fire. Eject, forward, fire. Again, and again, each time firing a new shot before the last one stopped echoing.

Finally, He ejected the last casing. He awkwardly fumbled for a new magazine with involuntarily twitching fingers. The spotter was breathing hard. He clapped his hand up to his mouth and nose and choked back the hot acidic puke that bubbled up to the back of his throat. Max lowered his head and looked down the scope again. Death filled the window. Fresh, dripping blood was painted on the walls and the ceiling. The woman and the old man were nowhere to be seen. The crying man was slumped over the outside edge of the window, his head torn apart horribly, as his body slowly slid like molasses over the windowsill, until the legs finally came up and out, and the whole mass of him fell. The large man was gone.

He could almost feel the image burn into his mind at that moment, and the tears welled up in his eyes. There was a pain like ice behind his eyes as fought the waves of sorrow washing over his mind, like pressing a cork on a shaken bottle of heartfelt agony. This is it for me, he thought to himself, I can't do this anymore. As a child he had dreamed of saving the world. Now he had, but it wasn't what he wanted. He forced the rationalizations through his mind, that there was nothing wrong with what he did, that he had saved the world, that he was a hero. He knew in his mind that he had done his best. But in his heart that wasn't enough.

The spotter nervously fingered a small plastic jar out of his pocket and popped a pill into his mouth. He held the jar out towards Max and rattled it. "You should take some, too. In case God hates us and we gotta shoot some more." he said shakily. Max looked at the bottle. Diazepam. He never liked the idea of taking it, and he was always steady enough to get along without it. But he knew the spotter was right. This was still a combat situation and his nerves were mush. "Thanks" he said, and dry-swallowed. Within minutes, he was focused again. He was still shaken and beaten, but at least he could still hold his gun. He peered down the scope for the last time that night.

Something moved. A man was running toward the window. He wore no shirt, exposing ugly tattoos all over his body. Emblems of death, and in his arm he held the bomb in his that was synonymous with that theme. This shot needed to count. He waited. The man stopped at window. Max fired. He ejected the casing, and advanced the next round. The bomb exploded.

A massive white flash filled the night, and when it cleared, the building was still standing. At the end of the night, the police still hadn't found the man who had thrown the bomb. The next day, Max Stone turned in his badge and his guns, and found himself unable to keep a steady and well-paying job for months until he found work at the asylum. But even though he thought he had left that night behind him, there was the very same man in his crosshairs again.

The man passed through, totally unaware of what nearly happened to him. Max resolved to keep aiming at the main door until Calypso came out. A while passed, still nothing. He let his thoughts wander as they would, and, inevitably, they came back to the tattooed man, and he invented countless fantasies about why the man threw the bomb. Perhaps the man had a change of heart in the middle of the night? Or perhaps he just didn't want to die? Or perhaps he was faking being a terrorist the whole time? The ex-cop would not settle on any fantasies right then, because at that moment Calypso stepped into and out of his sights before he had time to react. Cursing himself, he struggled to put the man back in his sights and keep him there. Suddenly, his target stopped. The little dwarves that were milling about saluted him as they passed him by. Max felt a cold wind blow over him. The rifle seemed to be fighting him, refusing to hold still. Calypso began to slowly turn. Max breathed out. The gun stopped moving, but when he had the man dead in his sights, he could see that his target was smiling straight back at him.


	9. Chapter 9

Ch. 9

He lay there on his back as the world slowly began to slide back into focus. There was a stale smell of latex and of plastic lingering in the air, and it was so dreadfully sterile that the clown bit his cheek and spat blood into his mask to spice things up a bit. He thought it felt like someone had done the Macarena on his brain. That thought caused the memory of the time he bombed a dance floor to pleasantly flit through his mind, before his train of thought was interrupted by a visitor. All he could see was the blurry silhouette of a man, pitch black against a square of blinding sunlight. The shadow moved closer to him, and stopped, laying his hand on the clown's foot. The clown shook violently at the touch, catching himself against the cold metal restraints holding him down. The silhouette leapt back with a start, and then started to laugh nervously. I'll kill you, thought the clown, I'll kill you, kill you, kill you. The silhouette's laughing faded into a chuckle. "You'll kill me, huh?" said the shadow.

The clown tried to speak, and instead spluttered, coughed, and gagged on blood and chipped flecks of teeth, sticking into the back of his throat like he was trying to swallow sand. He tried again, and managed after a while to speak before going into a heavy coughing fit. "So you know" he said. The shadow began to lift, and the figure began to take on almost imperceptible shades of dark color. It nodded. "Yes, I know what's on your mind. You want to kill everyone in the world, am I right?"

The clown smiled under his cracked and sinister mask. Yes, the dark figure was absolutely right. He wanted nothing more or less than to be personally responsible for the slaughter of the human race. If he could, he would. This guy's good, thought the clown. He could just barely make out the figure's face. One eye, it looked like, a black hole in the socket where the other would have been, and he was wearing an abrasively smug mug. As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight streaming in the door, the clown was able to discern that he was in an ambulance, bolted to a stretcher. The figure stepped up to his side and looked down at him, his eyes wandering up and down the clown's body in admiration. "You would kill me right now if you could," said the man. The clown shook violently, rattling the restraints that held him down. A growl started in the back of the clown's throat, and worked its way forward into a shrill, open-mouthed battle cry, loud and intense and full of hatred, not muffled by the mask.

The dark man standing over him slowly reached out his hand and ran them smoothly along the metal bar holding the clown down across the collarbone. He ran his fingers from the restraint onto the tough, callused skin of the clown's neck, unflinching as the clown shook his whole body uncontrollably at the touch. The hand worked its way gracefully past the clowns ears, to the back of his charred and scabbed head, to the buckle that held the cracked and bloody mask in place. The clown shrieked and screamed, shaking his head from side to side. Effortlessly, the buckle was undone. The dark man slid his hand onto the mask, and pried his fingers under the sides. The clown gagged and rattled, his whole body undulating in a seizure. The man tensed his muscles, ready to rip the mask from his face, when fire burst from the clown's head, engulfing the man's hands in flame. The man leapt back in shock and pain, and swore aloud. The clown's eyes winced sharply in pain. Tiny shadows, like children, invaded the small room. They scurried and fussed around the dark man, filling a bucket with water, which he plunged his hands into. Hot steam blasted up from the water, the sterile atmosphere of the ambulance immediately overcome by the smell of burning flesh. The clown began to laugh. The dark man glared at him venomously. "I don't see what's so funny, Sweet Tooth" he said. The clown leaned his head up and looked at the man and the small people around him. So he knows my true name, he thought to himself. Beneath his mask, he smiled darkly. "Saved by the hell" he said.

The man slowly pulled his hands out of the bucket. As the water dripped from his burned, bleeding hands, his wounds closed together, sealing up instantly. The clown was fascinated. "So you're acquainted with hell, are you?" said the man, brushing off tiny chads of hanging skin. Sweet Tooth was silent. "I'm somewhat familiar with it myself." The clown laughed. "Do tell." he said. The man grinned. "There's no place quite like home."


	10. Chapter 10

Ch. 10

The traveler was buried by an asphalt road in desert sand up to his neck, and his pale face and blue hair were caked with it. Once again, this just didn't seem to be his day. For that matter, he probably hadn't had a 'normal' day for a very long time, seeing as he had the interesting and not entirely controllable ability to pass directly through solid objects, a blessing and a curse that was very directly responsible for the mess he was in right now, something he tried not to think about. He reasoned, with remarkably questionable logic, that he should recall what brought him to this point in order to take his mind off of his current predicament. Questionable logic indeed. Yet for a total of about thirty seconds, it seemed to work. Yesterday morning he had left on a cross-country road trip, and had driven across two states when his car broke down that night, which was not the worst luck he would have on his misadventure.

Out in the middle of nowhere, in perfect darkness, surrounded on all sides by trees, he did what any normal person might do. He wandered along the road with his thumb sticking out. Unfortunately, normal people are idiots. When dawn began to creep up on the horizon, he found that the road he thought he had been walking along had actually disappeared a very long while ago, and he had no way of finding his way back. Hopelessly lost, he continued to trek through the woods, trying not to think of how bad things were turning out, something that he finds himself doing a lot of, with his luck. As the hours passed by, and it was nearly noon, the hunger, frustration, and heat had taken their toll on him. He started to worry about what he was going to do for food, seeing as he hadn't the sense to bring snacks on a cross-country road trip. He really wanted ho-hos.

He was busy amusing himself with the thought of a truck full of ho-hos randomly crashing through the trees and coming to a halt, when he tripped on a rock and fell face first into a small gurgling creek. He jumped back on his feet, and in a fit of rage, kicked around at the surface of the water. As he did so, there was a sound like pebbles being poured into the water. He stopped kicking and looked around. At the water. There were Skittles floating down the little stream. He jammed his hand into his pants pockets and found an opened bag of Skittles. So he had, in fact, brought snacks after all. He tore the bag into pieces and yelled obscenities that were nearly as colorful as the candy that had just run away from him. In a fit of rage, he yanked up a small log that was sticking half out of the creek, and wound his arm to strike at a tree trunk with it. He swung the log violently, and rather than impacting with the tree, it passed directly through it. The traveler's momentum, uninterrupted, thanks to the sudden intervention of his ability, carried him through the tree, where he then fell down, face first into the creek where it snaked around on the other side.

After running and crying for a little more than an hour, he came out of the woods and into an arid meadow, and at the far end of the meadow was a highway. Suddenly filled with joy, he bounded and skipped across the meadow, and was shot at. He shrieked in terror and yelled a few more obscenities. An unseen southern voice echoed back with a sincere note of concern. "Oh shit, I thought you was a deer, I didn't gitcha did I?" The traveler was unharmed, but scared out of his wits, and didn't even slow his run. He ran out to the highway and looked back. The hunter was standing at the far end of the meadow, in the woods. The traveler looked down at his body, making sure he wasn't hit, and when he was satisfied, gestured 'ok' at the hunter. "That's a relief. Don't just go boundin through the woods, you're askin to git shot. Be careful." The traveler wanted to remind the hunter that deer was out of season, and that it's illegal to hunt near the highways, but decided against it. After all, he'd already been shot at once…

He wandered down the road with his thumb out, waiting for someone to drive along, and hopefully stop. And that's exactly what happened. It was a large truck. And on the side of it were the two most beautiful words the traveler had ever seen. Little Debbie.

The driver seemed extremely friendly, and sympathetic to the traveler's troubles. He handed him a big box of ho-hos, and the traveler nearly cried. "My name's Roy" said the driver amiably, "how bout you?" The traveler quickly swallowed his first bite of the ho-ho and wiped the melted chocolate on his pants and held out his hand towards the driver. "My name's Welstein" he said. Roy smiled and shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you Welsein. You have a first name?" The traveler smiled weakly. "Yeah. Um, Ghost." Roy looked at him with a sideways smirk. "Ghost huh?" Ghost nodded. "Yeah, that's my real name."

They talked for a little bit, and their conversation seemed to fade. Roy seemed a nice guy, but aside from Ghost's misadventure, there was little to talk about. The two had practically nothing in common aside from a generally nice demeanor. After a while, Ghost noticed that Roy had a couple of empty bottles next to him. Still, though, he seemed to be driving well enough. Roy turned on the air conditioning after a while, and Ghost was surprised that he hadn't done so sooner, given the unbearable heat. The AC turned out to be a double-edged blessing. The air coming from the vents, while cool, smelled horrible. Still, it was better than being so freaking hot, he thought. He placed a little packet of ho-hos on top of the vent on his side of the dash, in order to cool it so that the chocolate wouldn't be so sticky. After a few minutes, he unwrapped the package, and opened his mouth wide. He could immediately taste the foul vapors from the air vent, so he put his ho-ho down, waiting until he got used to the smell before he would take a bite.

The smell of gasoline in his mouth and nose began to itch and tingle, and he felt the sneeze creeping up from a mile away. He found a tissue box on the floor, and prepared himself. He breathed in and out slowly, as it bubbled up, creating an unbearable tension in his sinuses, until the tension released itself in a powerful sneeze, and before he realized it, he had fallen through the truck, and had slid sideways through the asphalt and into the desert sand off the shoulder of the road, and was now buried up to his neck. And there, sitting on top of the sand, six inches in front of his nose, like a slap in the face, was the opened packet of ho-hos he had just tried to eat. His thirty seconds were up. He was back in the moment, and the moment was seriously fucked up.


	11. Chapter 11

John Doe had been sitting blindfolded in the driver's seat of a rusty little green sedan for a long time, waiting for Calypso to give the signal over the radio. He wasn't looking forward to finding out how it handled. When one of Calypso's little goblins had shown him the car, he mentally cursed himself for having the bad luck to get stuck with a shaky-looking sack of patinaed crap. He definitely wasn't looking forward to finding out for himself just how well it handled.

"You're cheating, aren't you, ya lying piece of shit!" burst a whiny, nasal voice from the back seat. There was a sound of a hand smacking the window in frustration. Another voice responded, "Goddammit, I'm no cheater! You just don't want to admit that I'm better than you." The first voice became very agitated. "Better than me, huh?" A gun cocked. "You asshole, you're not better than this bad boy, now admit it! You were hiding those aces in your sleeve!" The second voice began to plead frantically. It seemed to John that the goblins were pretty preoccupied squabbling with each other. He quietly raised his hand up to his eyes, and pinched the edge of the blindfold. Suddenly, the gun was pressed into the back of his neck. He snapped his hand down to his knee. "Motherfucker, you definitely don't want to get caught cheating. No doubt you remember what Calypso said would happen to you if you do." said the whiny goblin. Off in the distance, a gunshot rang out and echoed across the desert. The goblin laughed, "See? That's what happens if you take a sneak peek, so don't even think about it." John breathed heavily. He would just have to wait. He couldn't say he liked the way things were looking to shape up. He had no idea where he was, only that he was in a crappy car with a couple of gun-crazy goblin gamblers in the back seat.

Finally, a voice came over the car speakers. "Ladies and gentlemen" Calypso said with a theatrical flair. Gunshots sounded off in the distance. The voice on the radio grew annoyed. "Aw, for fuck's sake, will you people wait until I TELL you to take off your blindfolds?" The air was silent. "Good," he said, "now, I'd like to remind you of just how this little game of ours is going to play out.

"First, I would like to reiterate, do NOT take off your blindfolds until the signal is given. I will blow a whistle, and only then may you take off your blindfolds. Failure to wait for the whistle will result, as you have hopefully figured out by now, in death. Now, I would like to explain to you the rules of this competition. Rule number one: You may not, under any circumstances, die. Failure to follow rule number one will result in death. Rule number two: use any means you like to cause other contestants to break rule number one. Now, I'm fairly sure that none of you have forgotten, but the winner of this competition will be granted their heart's desire."

The radio hissed faintly as Calypso paused. "Now" he said, "I would like my assistants to leave the contestants."

There was a sound like a puff of smoke behind John, and then, the whistle sounded over the radio. He tore off his blindfold and looked around wildly. Fastening his seatbelt, he turned the key in the ignition, and the car roared to life. He glanced behind him. A pile of clothes and cards and guns lay in the back seat. The goblins were gone. He snatched the guns and stuffed them under his belt. He turned back toward the desert in front of him.

He scanned the horizon for cars. Two small dots off in the distance moved in close to each other. One of them erupted in flames. John hit the gas, tearing across the desert like a bullet. The surviving dot grew into a small purple sedan, running away from John toward another dot far off in the distance, completely unaware of its follower. Suddenly the car veered to the side and screeched to a halt, kicking dust and sand high into the air, obscuring it. John's car careened past as he slammed on the brakes. Gunfire sprayed wildly out of the dust cloud. John ducked down. Bullets clanged and pounded at the rear of the car. He quickly put his foot back on the gas and circled around the cloud of dust behind him. After a few seconds, the gunfire stopped.

The purple sedan slowly crept out of the dust cloud. John saw the young goth teen in the driver's seat, looking frantically across the plumes of airborne sand for her target. John was to her left. At the moment she spotted him, he had already accelerated, and a second later he rammed the driver side door, propelling the girl into the passenger door, snapping her neck. Watching her with focused eyes, he backed out of the side of her car and observed her for a few moments until he became convinced she was dead.

With a gun in each hand, he stepped out of his car and opened the rear passenger door. Just like his car, there was a little pile of goblin clothes, and a gun. Unlike his two pistols, one was an Uzi. He stuffed one of his guns into his pocket and put the submachine gun in his belt. He looked into the front passenger seat, where the girl's head was twisted towards him. He pulled the recline lever and pulled the seat back, and checked her body for weapons. That's when he noticed the massive scabs on her arm, the thing that she had been carving into herself with her fingernails the day he passed her on his was to solitary confinement. It was a name, Kelly. He didn't know what it meant, but he suddenly felt as though he should leave, as though the lifeless corpse in front of him demanded it.

He slammed the door and walked around to his car. Facing his own headlights, he saw that there were machine guns mounted in the grill of his car. He looked back at the purple sedan. The girl's car had guns mounted underneath. That's how she was able to fire at him so fast, he realized. He sat down in his seat and examined the dashboard and the seat around him. There was a hard metal lever next to the handbrake. He lifted it, and his car shook as a flood of bullets mercilessly pounded the wrecked car in front of him. He quickly put the switch back down. Flames sprang up from the hood of the girl's car, and soon engulfed the entire frame. He drove off into the distance. He had killed now. He felt more than prepared to do it again.


	12. Chapter 12

Ch. 12 

Mr. Grimm hadn't felt this satisfied in decades. The taste, sharp and succulent, played at the back of his tongue, causing his jaws to clench up as he savored the tingling sour. He swallowed another bite and laid the severed forearm down on the impromptu fire grill he had made from the hood of the smoldering station wagon in front of him. His dinner: the wagon's driver; a middle-aged bald Chinaman with a silver-gray beard, chauffeuring someone's seafood dinner in the passenger seat, when he first saw him. It had been thirty years since Grimm had seen anyone of Asian descent. He found it morbidly interesting that after all these years, the first one he should encounter would be part of the trail of corpses he was following to the clown.

In his mind, Grimm likened it to a trail of breadcrumbs. The clown would leave them behind as he drove around at random, killing people willy-nilly, and Grimm would follow behind, eating them up. He had already figured out his winning strategy for the competition. Since Sweet Tooth was intent on ignoring the other competitors, he would follow behind the clown while the rest of them killed each other off. After all, he knew what it was like to be in 'the shit', and he didn't like it. He especially disliked the open desert, which afforded him no cover anywhere. In the days of the war he had functioned better as a stalker. Tracking, sneaking, and killing in the dismal jungle night. Once he had killed the clown, he would hunt down any survivors of the desert skirmishes behind him on a full stomach with the cold, quick efficiency that he hoped he still had.

The food wasn't the only thing that Grimm felt grateful to his prey for. He had been following the clown in a red convertible, which to him seemed the most inappropriate vehicle for the hunt, until he discovered that his target had slaughtered a biker gang on the highway that led to Midtown. There were eight motorcycles, half of which were in perfect condition. He rode off on a jet-black Harley-Davidson. Wearing a black jacket and pale white human skull, decked out with guns and knives, he looked like the role model of every angry biker. And now, he was, quite literally, eating Chinese.

Having eaten his fill, he looked around the area of the burning car, searching for tire tracks leading away from the site. Far off in the distance he heard the indignant wail of police sirens. Turning toward the sound, he found the tracks. The leftover light of sunset gradually faded from the clouds, and he rode toward the clown in darkness.

The hours droned on, just as they always had for the past thirty years, alone with himself, and he wasn't fond of his own company. His thoughts drifted to the passenger he had left behind. After he had found Jimmy bleeding in the pantry, the young man had passed out. For a fraction of a second, Grimm had considered making a meal of him, but immediately forced the thought out of his mind. That would make me a monster, he thought. His hunger for human flesh had haunted him night and day. All those years in solitary, and not a slice of meat. He felt starved, and the craving haunted not only his every waking moment, but his dreams. He would dream of endless fields of corpses, hickory smoked and basted with barbeque sauce, succulent and tender, and he always woke up with drool streaming from his mouth. When he found Butch's body, it was like euphoria.

Yet when he saw Jimmy, he knew that he could never kill another man to eat. He would have lost a battle with himself if he ever did, and so he resolved to be a scavenger, eating what was already prepared for him. The battle was started in Vietnam, before the endless cravings.

He had been in a small squad, and Ben was his teammate. Over few months since they had met, Benny had become the best friend that he had ever known. They acted as one person, connected by what almost appeared to be a kind of telepathy. They killed for each other, and had saved each other's lives countless times. But eventually, hope ran out.

The team had been scouting a country road, trying to work their way toward a friendly command post in a small village. When they were within sight of their destination, they radioed the CO stationed there, who responded that the whole area had been secured. However, when they approached the village, a trio of mounted machine guns opened fire, and cut down six of their teammates. Ben and Grimm crawled along the ground and down into a crater. They returned fire on the fixed emplacements, and killed all three gunners, but not before Benny had been shot.

There seemed to be nobody coming from the village, so Grimm tended to Benny's wound. He had been shot through the chest. It was bad, but if he could get him to a field hospital, he might have a chance. He radioed the CO and told him what had happened. He asked him to have Benny picked up. No sooner had he finished then he was surrounded by Vietcong and beaten unconscious.

When he awoke, he was in a hole about 25 feet deep, about four feet across, and sealed on the top by a metal grate. Grass and leaves were piled on top of the grate, almost shutting out the sun. Benny was in there with him, pale as a ghost. Benny couldn't say much, except that he wanted to go home, and that he was going to die. He kept telling Benny that they'd be all right, without truly believing it. He was confident that he was going to die in there all alone after Benny.

Two days passed, silent except for the labored breathing of the wounded soldier, when at noon a rustling came from above. White hands scraped the foliage aside, instantly transforming the dim gloom into a blinding cocoon of light. Through the white haze appeared a flickering smear of gray, slowly sculpting itself into a faceless black silhouette. Instead of speaking, the shape simply remained for a time, statuesque and ominous, until instead of speaking, it burst into mad laughter. The shape twitched, and a new dark spot split from the hand, and quickly grew bigger. Grimm jerked aside, and the knife impacted in the mud by his feet. "Hate to see you go hungry" called the voice from above. Mute with anger, the soldier studied the black outline, trying to discern a feature he could hate, when a cloud passed in front of the sun. In the moment that passed before his captor vanished, he could see plainly the olive drab uniform, the beard, the gold tooth, and the medals that decorated the village's treacherous commander. His malefactor's face burned itself into his memory. He closed his fingers around the blade's mud-caked handle and held it for a while, rocking back and forth in horror and disgust. Little did he know that that night would haunt his every waking moment for decades to come.

Two days of rain later Grimm's isolation was disturbed by sunlight and the sounds of helicopters and gunfire, which lasted until the light moved from one side of the hole to the other. In that time, Grimm briefed Benny on the particulars of their escape.

"The clay here is too steep and hard to climb, and too weak for me to put all my weight on the knife on one side," he said holding the knife sideways at eye level. "I'll need you to help me get me a hold in the other side." Grimm tilted his head up and down, watching Benny nod back at him through the reflection in the blade. His eyes appeared too far sunk in. Grimm groped around at the back of his head for the seam where a leather shoelace stitched the cracked gray bone together. He tugged at the lace, and Grimm's eyes filled Benny's sockets.

"Stay sharp, keep your eyes open!" he barked, with a reprimanding glare into the knife. With that, Grimm grabbed one of Benny's ribs and jammed it into the clay wall, and then the knife in the opposite wall. He hoisted himself up and pressed his feet to clay in front of him, stretching his legs out until clay pressed against his back as well. He pulled the knife and rib out and sunk them back into the wall a few feet above their last position. He pulled himself up again and started the process over. After what felt like an eternity he reached the seal at the top. The sunlight had been blocked by a thick screen of white cloud. He tossed the knife and rib back down the hole and grabbed at the metal bars. He prayed that the mud on the surface hadn't dried all the way. Using his feet as leverage, he pushed against the clay with all his strength, until the grate started to slide. It moved for a few feet, leaving the hole half open until it started to dip in toward his stomach. _No_, he thought, _I'm not going back down there._ He pressed his back against the earth behind him and pushed at the grate with only the strength in his arms. It was then that it began to rain.

The grate was still jammed against something on the surface, and now his feet were beginning to lose their grip. _Not like this,_ he begged. _Please, God, don't make me lose like this._ He kicked his legs up, one after the other, trying to find a solid purchase, each time failing, until he has running in place on the wall. He felt the dirt dampen on his back, until it trickled into mud and ran down the inside of his shirt. His back began to slide.

_I'm going to fall_.

He flailed and writhed in panic. He sunk down a foot or so.

_I'm going to die._

His feet skipped a beat. As it happened, he felt numb, like somehow he was watching it all happen, and no longer feeling the pain or the cold or the mud. He watched as his feet floated down, away from him. Watched as his back slowly cleaved from the wall, and all parts of the hole lost contact with his body. But the sensation stopped. He was snapped back into reality by a sharp, stabbing pain in his neck, a shock that echoed throughout his body. Instead of the bottom of the hole moving toward him, it moved away, and he found himself lying on the wet grass beneath two American soldiers. Their words were a murmur, muted and incomprehensible.

He lay there at their feet, exhausted and immovable, able to do nothing but look in wonder at the faces of his rescuers. Their voices and accents formed themselves into words and sentences, and before long, Grimm understood what had happened. The Vietcong had used the traitor to cast out false communications in order to trap American soldiers in order to interrogate them. However, while Grimm and Benny were in the hole, a special forces unit had taken control of the village.

After a while two Vietnamese women came with a green stretcher, and hoisted him onto it. He was carried to a makeshift medical tent, wounded Vietnamese civilians and American soldiers populating rows and rows of bloodstained cots. He was laid down on one of these cots, when a pair of hands clamped onto Benny's skull. As the skull slipped off Grimm's head, his world turned red. The next thing he remembered, the skull was back on, and the two women and the two soldiers lay dead on the ground.

That was where his battle began. He had tried to rationalize it, but had never forgiven himself. He killed Benny to save himself. After that, he would do anything to save Benny. He would do anything to bring him back. As he rode in pursuit of the clown, he passed a man buried to his neck in the sand. He slowed down and stopped. He looked at the poor man's reflection in the side mirror, and his mind was drawn back to the hole. There was no time to help the unfortunate soul. He roared the engine and pressed on. "There is no price to great to be paid for us, Ben." he whispered. "After all, we've already suffered enough."


	13. Chapter 13

Ch. 13.

The Sun streamed through the dusty air in yellow bands, creating a terrace of light and shadow on Jimmy's wounded body. As the hours dragged on, the light moved up his chest, across his face and into his eyes, slowly torturing him awake. He groaned, the sound echoed unheard down the square tiles out of the rest room and into the hallway outside. He turned aside, and fell from the bench to the floor before even realizing that he had been on a bench. A red blur caked the white ceramic floor at his face. As his vision slid into focus, the blur morphed into a coherent image, revealing that the blood on the floor was not a splatter, it was a message.

_Snacks this way._

A trail of small rusty droplets led out the bathroom. The effort of extending his arm to crawl along the path was answered with a loud rip and a sharp pain. Jim curled sideways, cradling the shot arm against his chest. The wound had been bandaged and a torn arm sling draped around his neck. He lay in the fetal position a few moments more, cursing at the pain and at his own stupidity for tearing the makeshift sling, before he sat upright and gradually, with the aid of the bench to his side, pulled himself to his feet. He lurched out of the bathroom and into the small hallway, when he felt a warm sticky syrup drip down the back of his hand. He pressed his fingers against the bandaged wound and watched the white wrapping turn brown where his fingertips touched. He was bleeding again.

Using his good arm, he undid the buckle on his belt, removed his gun from the holster, and let the holster drop to the floor. The gun felt light. He held the butt to his chest and pressed down on the magazine release, and nothing slid out. "No ammo" he whispered to the silence. He dropped the gun to the floor and wrapped the belt around his neck, buckling it under the bad arm, and continued to follow the trail of blood.

It led out to a small foyer that smelled like chlorine. Two computers sat on the other side of a small desk covered in papers, keys, and a first aid kit. On the wall was a list of swimming pool rules. A two-sided sign hung on the inside of the door. The side facing him read 'Open'. At the opposite end of the room were a snack vendor and a water fountain. The snack machine was smashed open, the trail of blood ended on the floor in front of it, mixing in with the broken glass. Taped to the machine was a note. Jim approached the machine and tore it off

_Found a pencil. Still one bullet left._

Jim stopped and reflected on it for a moment. It seemed to him that Grimm was responsible. He had apparently taken care of him in his own crazy, morbid way. But at the same time he wondered why he would take most, but not all of his ammo. He wondered what could be so important to him that he would help Jim out enough that he could fend for himself, and then move on. It was as though the skull-faced man didn't want to leave Jimmy with no chance at all, but was in too much of a hurry to make sure of his survival.

The thought was interrupted by the sound of footsteps echoing in from the hallway. They were soft, quiet, and slowly paced, as though the other trespasser was trying to approach undetected. Jim thought of the gun, lying on the floor, bullet in the chamber and sprinted into the hall. He glimpsed the man at the other end of the hall, obscured by the shadows. Jimmy dropped to his knees and snatched the gun with his left hand, fumbling awkwardly for a split second, and snapped it up to eye level. The man in the shadows froze. "PUT YOUR HANDS UP" Jim shouted. The mystery figure obeyed. Jim swallowed, and with some calm commanded the shape to put his hands in the air and step forward. As the man did so, sand and dirt slumped off his arms and shirt, crackling as they hit the tile floor.

"Now," Said Jim, "We're gonna have show and tell. I want you to show yourself and then tell me how the FUCK you got in here?"

The man took a step forward, moving his pale face and blue hair into the light. Shaking, he tried to explain, "I-I-I didn't know anyone else was in here. I just came in through the side." "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAME IN THROUGH THE SIDE?" Jim bellowed, waving the gun as he yelled. A third voice from behind joined the room.

"Son, by virtue of your profession, your gun is to be drawn for the protection of the innocent. You have drawn it in error; you are gonna remedy that now or I will."

Jim tensed. The voice was unmistakably that of the preacher, but with a note of aggression and force that he had never heard before. Holding his gun steady, he turned his head to try and see the preacher, when the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the skin behind his ear. "I won't ask you again, my boy," said the preacher, "drop the gun."


End file.
